Investors who want to cash in on Realty Income Corporation’s (NYSE:O) upcoming dividend of $0.22 per share have only 3 days left to buy the shares before its ex-dividend date, 30 April 2018, in time for dividends payable on the 15 May 2018. Should you diversify into Realty Income and boost your portfolio income stream? Well, keep on reading because today, I’m going to look at the latest data and analyze the stock and its dividend property in further detail. View our latest analysis for Realty Income

5 checks you should use to assess a dividend stock

When assessing a stock as a potential addition to my dividend Portfolio, I look at these five areas:

• Is their annual yield among the top 25% of dividend payers?

• Has it paid dividend every year without dramatically reducing payout in the past?

• Has dividend per share amount increased over the past?

• Is it able to pay the current rate of dividends from its earnings?

• Will it be able to continue to payout at the current rate in the future?

How well does Realty Income fit our criteria?

Although REITs are expected to payout a high portion of the earnings, Realty Income currently pays out more than double its net income, which suggests that the dividend is not well-covered by earnings by any means. In the near future, analysts are predicting a more sensible payout ratio of 185.99%, leading to a dividend yield of 5.43%. Furthermore, EPS should increase to $1.36, meaning that the lower payout ratio does not necessarily implicate a lower dividend payment. If dividend is a key criteria in your investment consideration, then you need to make sure the dividend stock you’re eyeing out is reliable in its payments. In the case of O it has increased its DPS from $1.65 to $2.63 in the past 10 years. It has also been paying out dividend consistently during this time, as you’d expect for a company increasing its dividend levels. This is an impressive feat, which makes O a true dividend rockstar. Compared to its peers, Realty Income generates a yield of 5.31%, which is high for REITs stocks.

Next Steps:

With this in mind, I definitely rank Realty Income as a strong dividend stock, and makes it worth further research for anyone who likes steady income generation from their portfolio. Given that this is purely a dividend analysis, I recommend taking sufficient time to understand its core business and determine whether the company and its investment properties suit your overall goals. Below, I’ve compiled three fundamental aspects you should further examine:

1. Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for O’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for O’s outlook.

2. Valuation: What is O worth today? Even if the stock is a cash cow, it’s not worth an infinite price. The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether O is currently mispriced by the market.

3. Other Dividend Rockstars: Are there better dividend payers with stronger fundamentals out there? Check out our free list of these great stocks here.

To help readers see pass the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price sensitive company announcements.

The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned.